Month: August 2020

I could write pages on orientation, which has crescendoed in the past week. There was the week-long Academic Expo, which turned out to be a lot less formal than the name suggests. There was also Outdoor Action, which contained more fun and bonding than the format would suggest. The fall semester begins next Monday, August 31^st. I am frankly burnt out of Zoom! meetings and thinking about being a Princeton student. It’s become treacherously close to consuming all my writing, which makes it seem like it’s consuming my life (it’s not, only a portion of it).

Instead, I want to tell you the story of how I found noodles in my rice. It was a pretty normal day until this shocking event. 

—

I’m responsible for making the rice every day. At 4:30PM, I will unhook the rice bowl from its perch on the drying rack and fill it with two scoops of rice. Then I will maneuver the rice bowl under the faucet, wash it thrice, and fill it with the appropriate amount of water before setting it into the rice cooker. I will also turn on the rice cooker, although sometimes I forget and my grandma or mom will berate me for it.

For lunch, I’ve taken to making noodles. Costco sells a bundle of Kraft noodles in different shapes and sizes. They’re quick to make and taste fresh when paired with a good sauce (I like this peanut one from the Woks of Life). 

One day, in the process of opening the pantry, I knocked down an opened box of rotini pasta. The pasta spilled out. Darn, I thought, I’ll have to sweep that up. It was quite lucky though. Instead of spilling onto the floor, the pasta spilled into an opened bag of rice. When I went to prepare that night’s rice, I didn’t remove the pasta bits. I scooped the pasta-rice mixture and rinsed as usual. 

When I told my sister about the surprise waiting in the rice cooker, she crumpled over in laughter. I was laughing pretty hard too. It’s not that I didn’t notice the pasta. In a calculated move, I chose not to act on the information. Part of it was laziness — I didn’t feel like picking out the pasta. Part of it was for entertainment — it might make for an amusing dinner. I was also thinking that it might pick up a few laughs from my little sister, which it did. 

“There’s noodles in my rice!” my grandma exclaimed at the dinner table. Cue more laughter from my little sister and I. I told her the story about my pasta accident. We all laughed. The next day, I pick out the pasta from the rice and make it into a yummy peanut noodle dish. 

And we all lived happily ever after (except the rice and noodles, which were violently and vigorously digested in my stomach). The End!

—

I kind of miss writing simple “happily ever after” stories. They remind me of the easy days of elementary school.

Today I received an orientation email from WRI108, my writing course for fall semester. The syllabus confirms that I will “practice critical reading skills that enable [me] to ask questions which are worthy of scholarly analysis; cultivate authority as a writer that allows [me] to stake out imaginative answers to those questions; leverage various kinds of evidence in support of [my] written claims; and organize all of these components in a logical, sophisticated, and engaging progression.” 

While I’m certainly excited to improve my critical reading and writing skills, I want to remember why I enjoy writing in the first place. It’s good fun and it helps me record my thoughts: structured (in the case of academic writing) and unstructured (in the case of blog writing, or academic in the context of elementary school writing). 

On August 7^th, President Eisgruber informed the student body that first-years and juniors would no longer be allowed to live on campus in the fall. Instead, fall semester will be entirely virtual. This news set off a whirlwind of reactions: disbelief, loss, disappointment, eventually, acceptance. 

I was anticipating leaving home. I imagine most students feel the same way. I had signed up for a move-in time, had drafted a packing list, and was haphazardly and excitedly imagining life in my new single space. The news flash freezed my planning. Since August 7^th, these nascent thoughts and ideas have ceased.

The most difficult fact to swallow is not seeing my peers for an indefinite period of time. I’ve been looking forward to reuniting with my Bridge Year cohort, meeting the people in my orientation groups, and finding ways to create and deepen relationships despite the constrained social conditions. I’ve been home for five months and will (likely) be home for twelve months longer. Sometimes I wonder what effect this self-isolation has had on my social skills and motivation for social situations. 

Once I’ve listed out my disappointments as best I can, I tried to turn to the positives. In some instances this mental exercise feels forced, but surprisingly I’ve found quite a few silver linings. I owe it to my home situation. I have parents who are absolutely supportive of my education. Although I might explore renting an apartment for the spring semester, for the coming fall semester, my home environment will do just fine. It’s not perfect — I’m afraid that my dad’s habit of hovering over my work and always checking about grades will carry over from high school — but considering the crisis we are in, it is bearable. 

More than bearable, once I consider the personal enrichment and growth that can come from staying home. Since Bridge Year, I’ve noticed that I take initiative in helping out around the house, which has conferred a stronger sense of stewardship and belonging. This translated into effort on my part to resolve conflicts through dialogue. Through high school, I almost always came home tired. When I arrived home, I was focused on optimizing my time towards schoolwork and activities to “get ahead”. I almost never had the energy or patience to express my concerns with my parents, or when I did, I was snappy and combative. I’ve been more relaxed, enjoying more family time, and have an unexpected opportunity to continue this growth. I’m still far from perfect, or even good, at bringing up and resolving personal issues peacefully and respectfully, but now I have more chances to improve in the relatively nurturing space at home. 

In terms of personal fulfillment, many activities I was looking forward to on campus are available to me at home. I have to modify my expectations and do more leg-work organizing for myself, but they are still available to me. I’m looking forward to more virtual dance classes (through Princeton’s co-curricular offerings and also with Xuejuan Dance Ensemble). I’m looking forward to biking around local trails with my little sister. Home life could actually offer more options for leisure than a socially-distant campus. I can continue to cook and bake, start raising chickens in the winter, and start gardening with my mom come spring. 

And of course, I’m staying safe. That might be the biggest advantage conferred by staying home. I am young and physically active, and so often take good health for granted. Even now, I don’t think about the possibility of contracting COVID-19. I think even less about the possibility of having serious health consequences. I’m so used to being healthy. Yet the science shows that young people do get infected, and that there might be long-term lung damage regardless of age. There have been anecdotes of lingering taste and smell loss. I don’t want to freak out about it, but I do think I can take it as another one of many silver linings of staying home. 

That said, I look forward to the day that we can have the “normal” college experience, go on-campus, go out with friends, have small-group discussions and large-group lectures in-person. Until the situation allows it, I suppose I can look forward to more time at home too.